Joe Speaker

I’m feeling way too hungover to live blog the Event, but I’ll provide periodic updates, say, on the hour. If we make it to Hour Four or so, I’ll hopefully be able to be more verbose. Currently starting the Hair of the Dog phase, so I’ll let you know how that turns out.

The specifics: 4372 runners. $1,311,600 pool. 585 places paid. 3K starting chips and 15(!) min. levels starting at 15/30.

First Break: T3970. Lost just over a thousand players that first hour, which is amazing. Won a pot early (like 6th hand) with AK. Not trying to play big pots with one pair this early with this structure, but I got about 800 out of A4 (AJ776 board). Lost a pre-flop raise with AK when the board missed. Won a pot on the turn with 63s in the SB, flopping bottom two. Then dragged a barely-bet pot in the battle of the blinds when I rivered a straight against The Hammer(!). He was ahead on the turn. Saw 15% of flops, good number for the first hour, especially since I didn’t get a pocket pair. See ya in an hour.

Second Break: T10585. Not quite twice par, having lost just more than half the field. This hour started off with quite the bang. I called a raise with AKo to see a flop of KcKx2c. Heads-up with the raiser. Yeah, I kinda like that one. He led out for 2/3rd the pot, I raised (because if I had a K, I wouldn’t raise there, right?) his bet 2.5x and he pushed with JJ. I dodged his two outs (yes, I have to dodge two outs), taking me to T6K. Couple hands later, I open-raise with 99 and get called by the SB. He leads out on an Ah9c5h flop. Oh boy. Fireworks coming. I make the SAME play, raising his bet 2.5x. Why? I’m telling him I’m big and I want the flush draws OUT. He comes back over the top for a bunch more and I push. He calls, showing 55. Cooooooooler. Up to T10K. Was pretty pleased to see that instead of KhQh or similar. Didn’t think AA was a possibilty with the flat call. Lost a bit with a failed stop and go from the BB with a whiffed AJo. Got it back, and then some, with a flopped set of 3s. Played it pretty passively v. an over-aggressive player. Possible straight there on the turn and he kept betting into me, even on the river when he missed his flush draw. Lost a pre-flop call with 99. Got blinds with JJ. C-bet with whiffed AQs check-raised. The pocket pairs arrived, though I was mostly a spectator the last 20 minutes, aside from seeing some cheap flops with Axs and little pairs, well, and that small pot I won with 22 when it was checked all the way down on an AQ6J4 board. Flops seen % still at 15.

Time to play some poker. 100/200 level to start this hour, then antes kick in. If I’m still around in a hour, I’ll provide faster updates. I’m a little drunk again.

Third Break: That was a bit of a struggle. T10105. But I’d lost about 4K before getting Ako in a good spot (the SB) to open-raise and having the short-stacked BB push with KJ. Table got very aggressive with the antes and I tried to mix it up with them a couple times too often (and I played two hands rather poorly, costing me about 1200). So I dialed it back, normally the opposite of what I do at this juncture of a tourney, but I had to adapt to the table. And got a hand in time to chip up. Got my sea legs back, though my steals don’t seem to work. My stack is nickels below par, sitting about the median of the remaining field. We’re down to 1048. More than half of us are gonna get paid.

***

Alright, here we go. Bad start to Hour 4. Raise UTG+1 with AQo, push from my immediate left, re-push from his immediate left and I have to let it go. JJ and KK. Good fold, but hurtful, chip-wise. Level is 200/400/50 and it’s push-monkey-tastic at this point. A card-catching contest. I haven’t had AA, KK or QQ yet today, so, channel those for me, ‘kay?

KQo raise flat-called by the button, the over-aggressive, nutjob, who pushes pre-flop repeatedly so must have a big hand button, and when I whiff the flop, I’m done with it. Down to just over 5K with the blinds going up. From M of 13 to one of less than 5 in 15 short minutes. A hand would be good.

Level 14: 250/500/50. And that’s that. Open-push on button with KJ0. BB has AJo. Ace on flop renders river K useless. IGHN. Sigh.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.